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MAJ FAO - Europe
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A wide-range of opinions exist on how terrible the military is at identifying, retaining, and promoting talent. The system, say many, is broken, and the best leave the military, meaning those mid-level and low-level performers remain and get promoted. SECDEF seems to agree, with his "Force of the Future" initiatives, and the Services seem to be on-board, as well. Three good articles here that offer a different point of view: that the system isn't broken.

I think the system for talent management in DoD is terrible, and should be reformed, starting with a full reform of DOPMA and removing HRC and especially branch managers from most, if not all, personnel decisions.
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CPT Military Police
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9 y
MAJ (Join to see)

Great leaders keep moving forward and when something impedes their movement they find a way around it. Have you read Combat Leader to Corporate Leader?

LTC Chad Storlie
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LTC Yinon Weiss
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Edited 9 y ago
It's important to see it from both angles. If you ask current senior military leaders, it would be hard for them to say that there is a brain drain, else they would be conceding that the system that got them in place was a faulty system. If you ask people who got out, they are more apt to say that there is, as they self-selected to leave the system that frustrated them. So it's hard to get to the truth. However, a wise person told me a long time ago that there are two types of people in the military:

1) People that need the military
2) People that are needed by the military

I would say that the military's approach of one-size-fits-all, heavily time based promotion tracks, and rigid career progression, don't do a lot to retain type #2. That doesn't mean that type #2 doesn't continue to serve, but they often do so knowing that they sacrifice other potential elsewhere, and that's ok.

One indication that the military has a problem is the simple fact that the military historically hasn't tracked who was getting out. Were they the top performers? Poor performers? Did they have more education or less education? Why were they getting out in the first place? The very fact that the military isn't trying to learn from these things is indicative of a problem in my view. The US military is still the most powerful military in the world by a longshot, but it doesn't mean we can't be smarter about talent management.

I spoke with the HRC CG about this a few months ago, and discussed how RallyPoint might even be able to help. After our meeting, I shared with him the following article: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/us-military-tries-halt-brain-drain/413965/
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CPT Mark Gonzalez
CPT Mark Gonzalez
9 y
I really like the point you make that if senior leaders admit to how broken talent management is they are admitting that the system that got them to where they are is flawed. All of us adapt to all systems and manipulate them to our favor when possible (as long as it is honorable).
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CPT Mark Gonzalez
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Just my opinion, but talent mismanagement is a huge issue for the army. Other than personal pride and dedication to do your best their is no tangible benefit at all for being in the top 5th% compared to the 65th%. I say that because at 5% you won't get bz unless by luck and at 65% you are safe from things like OSBs and still have a decent chance for promotion. Fall below 65% and you have to start sweating the OSBs. Hover at 5%-10% you get nothing except leverage in negotiating assignments and the guy who is at 65% probably goes home to his wife earlier every day and enjoys a higher quality of life than you do, because you are married to a job that isn't going to differientiate your performance.

Talent management is absolutely killing the Army's retention of its top talent.
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MAJ FAO - Europe
MAJ (Join to see)
9 y
"Talent mismanagement" is what I'm going to start using in discussions like this.
I'd recommend you adjust your 65th% to 60th%, based on the last couple years of LTC promotion board results. Apart from that, you're spot on.
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CPT Mark Gonzalez
CPT Mark Gonzalez
9 y
Sir I should clarify my 65% is "to MAJ" as that is currently my frame of reference. It adjusts based your rank. To CPT it is probably 70-75%, but COL is like 45%.
It may be brutal for some, but I would appreciate having all of our files scrubbed and told based off of objective standards you are x percentile, so that we all really knew where we stood and it wasn't a matter of personal inflation or deflation.
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